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A Look at the Hike and Bike Now Running to the Addicks Park and Ride

Looks like this mile and a half extension of a hike and bike trail leading north out of Terry Hershey Park is ready to go. Photos popped up on HAIF yesterday that follow the trail as it dives beneath the Katy Fwy. and banks west between Highway 6 and Eldridge Pkwy. along the Addicks Dam.

According to the Terry Hershey Park website, this extension now makes a continuous ride possible from neighborhoods around Wilcrest, Kirkwood, and Dairy Ashford to the Addicks Park and Ride to the northwest.

Bridge or tunnel still needed at Eldridge to connect up addicks reservoir trail on both sides. That would really enhance the value of the north side areas and give better security to those biking to the Conoco and shell campuses.

Wow! I just recently discovered the Terry Hershey Park Extension. I live and work right off of Park Row and the phantom entrance across from the Addicks Park and Ride (yes, it’s quite possibly the most unnoticeable park entrance ever) is conveniently close!!! I’m excited what this park has to offer and I am optimistic that there may be more extensions in the future. The north trail may seem pretty isolated right now (some of you might even be grumbling “oh this is such a waste of money”), but that is bound to change since the Energy Corridor is continually growing at a rapid pace. Whoo! So stoked!

Typical Houston – or should I say “typical Texas”: a 1.5-mile bike path that doesn’t go anywhere and dumps cyclists out onto a superhighway crowded with soccer moms doing their makeup while driving F250s and Suburbans. The darned trail passes within 100 feet of the asphalt strip running on top of Addicks dam, but there’s no access. To get to the other side of Eldridge, you have to wind through the Omni parking lot; to get to the other side of 6 you need special dispensation from Governor Goodhair and a drawerful of rosary beads.

Just like the rest of the Houston area’s moronic trail non-system, nothing connects to another trail anywhere. You FINALLY give people a way to get across the deathtrap that is the Katy Freeway, and you don’t connect it to anything north of Park Row?!! Jesus H: when are Texans going to learn that forcing people on bicycles to ride on the same streets as those camo-drenched peckerwoods is a recipe for hit-and-run fatalities.